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For the Levantine Assassins in the High Middle Ages, feathers were used to both grant an Assassin permission to kill a target, as well as for them to prove that the assignment had been completed.[1]

After investigations on the target had been completed, Assassins' Bureau leaders would give the chosen Assassin a feather, allowing them to proceed with the actual mission. Upon killing his target, the Assassin would stain the feather with the blood of the slain, and present it to the Bureau leader.[1]

Among Assassins, the phrase "having a feather on one's head" meant a mark of death. For example, an informant in Damascus once commented that "a feather laid on top of Abu'l Nuqoud's head," implying that the Merchant King was marked for assassination.[1]

As he was sickly and often confined to bed, Petruccio Auditore once asked his brother Ezio to collect feathers for him. Though Ezio asked him what they were for, he only said that it was a secret, which he would reveal in time.

In an effort to resolve this, Ezio sought to collect feathers, both in memory of his brother and to coax his mother into speaking again. As he traveled across Italy, he gathered and placed any feathers he found into a box in his mother's room.

Maria's box of feathers

After Ezio had collected fifty feathers, Mario Auditore spoke with him about what he was doing, suggesting that he should give up in what he believed to be a wasted effort. In an attempt to have Ezio turn his attention to other matters, Mario also let him know that a new weapon, the Condottiero War Hammer, was waiting for him at the Monteriggioniblacksmith.

After collecting one hundred feathers, Ezio's efforts were rewarded. Maria spoke again for the first time in years, thanking Ezio for not giving up on her, and presenting him with the Auditore Cape.[2]

In later years, even after the Fall of Monteriggioni, Ezio would continue to collect feathers in Rome; particularly those found on landmarks throughout the city. He placed these feathers in a chest at the Tiber Island headquarters, which resembled the feather box that had once been kept in Maria's room.[3]

Before the fall of the Assassin Order, an Assassin safehouse disguised as a dry-cleaners used photographs of feathers, coupled with the codeword "Rafiq", as proof of identity. However, the Templars, with the help of Daniel Cross, used this information to identify the safehouse and launched an assault.[5]

In Assassin's Creed II, if one were to begin collecting feathers in Florence before arriving at Monterigionni, the Animus would still provide the message stating that feathers could be returned to Maria's room there.